Sunday, April 19, 2015

Jesus: A Prophet, God's Only Son, or the Logos?

By Rudy
Barnes, Jr., April 19, 2015

Christian
doctrine considers Jesus as the Christ, or God’s only Son and a coequal with
God the Father in the Holy Trinity. Jews
and Muslims consider Jesus a prophet, but not a divine being. Aside from church doctrine, what does The New
Testament tell us about Jesus?

The
Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) describe Jesus as a Jewish rabbi and
prophet who taught the word of God, was crucified and then rose from the dead. Matthew and Luke have differing accounts of a
virgin birth and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, and Mark has no
account of a virgin birth and its post-resurrection account is considered a
later addition to the original Gospel. John’s
Gospel has no miraculous birth and presents Jesus as the Logos, or the word of God made flesh, and it has its own unique post-resurrection
account.

Paul’s
letters were written before the four Gospel accounts. After a dramatic encounter with the risen
Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul was converted to Christianity and originated
the atonement doctrine to explain the crucifixion and resurrection, and he predicted
a Parousia in which a risen Christ would
return in the end times to usher in
God’s kingdom on earth.

Was
Jesus the last in a long line of Jewish prophets who spoke the word of
God in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament)?
Or was Jesus something more, a divine being who is the second person of
the Holy Trinity and in whom belief is required for salvation? A definitive answer will forever be shrouded
in mystery, but an understanding of the concept of the Logos can put the unique Jesus of John’s Gospel in proper
perspective with the other Gospel accounts.

The
Logos is a Greek term for a mystical
and divine power that emanates from God, but that is not God per se.
It is translated as the Word of
God in John’s Gospel, but in Hellenic Judaism the Logos had a meaning far beyond that of a mere word. It referred to divine reason, or the creative
power of God, which in a Hebrew context was illustrated in the creation story
in the first chapter of Genesis in which God
said everything into creation; and as God’s wisdom it was personified in
the Sophia of Proverbs 8:1-36 through
9:1-18.

Philo
of Alexandria was from a distinguished Jewish family and a contemporary of
Jesus. He was perhaps the most important representative of Hellenistic Judaism
and wrote extensively on the Logos; and
while Philo had no knowledge of Jesus, his writings on Logos are strikingly similar to the way John’s Gospel describes
Jesus as the Logos made flesh.

In
Platonic terms Logos was “…both immanent
in the world and at the same time the transcendent divine mind.” As with other Platonic terms that related to
God, the Logos was the transforming
power of God’s love that was personified in the I am sayings unique to John’s Gospel. That did not make Jesus the first or last human
manifestation of the Logos, but a
powerful example of the creative power of God’s love and God’s wisdom for his
time and place.

So
what? For starters, if the Church had promoted
belief in Jesus as the personification of the Logos and the transforming power of God’s love and wisdom rather the
one and only Son of God and the second person of the Trinity, then history
would have been dramatically different.

It
is not too late to get it right. The
primary focus of the Christian faith should be to follow Jesus as the Logos or word of God rather than to worship
Jesus Christ as God. If that were church
doctrine, then Christian affirmations of faith would emphasize the service of
love as set forth in the example of Jesus as stated in A Modern Affirmation, rather than belief in Jesus Christ as the
only Son of God who sits at the right hand of God and judges the quick and the
dead, as stated in the traditional Apostles
Creed, where there is no mention of the teachings of Jesus. Both affirmations of faith are in The
United Methodist Hymnal (1989).

The
emphasis of church doctrine on belief in the divinity of Jesus rather than in the
moral imperatives of his teachings as the only
means of salvation has created a credibility problem for the Christian religion. More and more people brought up as Christians
are rejecting church doctrines that conflict with the teachings of Jesus and
reason and are leaving the church as Nones. Robin R. Meyers has challenged modern
Christians in his book, Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping
Christ and Start Following Jesus (Harper One, 2009); but modifying ancient
church doctrines to save Jesus from the Church is a formidable challenge.

Islam
has an even more daunting challenge to establish credibility and legitimacy in
the modern world. While Muhammad is
considered a prophet and not a divine being, the Qur’an which he dictated is
considered by Muslims to be the perfect Logos,
or the word of God made book. The Qur’an
asserts that belief in its perfection is essential to salvation and, like exclusivist
Christian doctrines, the Qur’an states that unbelievers are condemned to
eternal damnation. To further complicate
matters, the Qur’an contains comprehensive and immutable laws that preclude
modern concepts of democracy, libertarian human rights and secular law. Today Islam in the Middle East and Africa is
a fundamentalist religion at war with modern and progressive values.

Christianity
and Islam have both tried to put God in a box by limiting salvation to those
who believe in the divinity of a man (Jesus for Christians) or a book (the
Qur’an for Muslims), rather than following their teachings as moral imperatives. If Logos
is indeed the word of God and was manifest in Jesus and the Qur’an, it is a
living word that can and must be adapted to changing times. God did not cease to create or become mute after
the crucifixion of Jesus and the death of Muhammad, and God has never favored
any one religion over others.

If Christians and Muslims could see both Jesus
and the Qur’an as manifestations of the Logos
for their time and place and interpret their teachings as standards of
legitimacy for our time and place, then religious reconciliation and lasting
peace would become possible. And if
there were ever a timeless and universal statement of Logos it is the greatest
commandment to love God and our neighbors—even our unbelieving neighbors—as ourselves.

Notes
and References to Resources:

This topic is related to the
following Lessons in the J&M Book: Lesson #16 (parable of the wicked tenants, Mark 4:1-20); Lesson #17 (life after death and the resurrection,
Mark 12:18-27; and Lesson #18 (the
anointing of Jesus, Mark 14:3-8).

The primary Resource for this website is The Teachings of Jesus and Muhammadon Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy. Its premise is that the teachings of Jesus
and Muhammad are the word of God (Logos),
and that God’s word is a living word that should be interpreted for changing
times, using advances in knowledge and reason in the process. See the first two blogs posted on this
website: Jesus Meets Muhammad, Then and Now, posted December 1, 2014; and Religion and Reason, posted December 8,
2014.

On Paul’s atonement doctrine as
an explanation of the crucifixion and resurrection, see The Resurrection in a new light posted on April 5, 2015; on the greatest commandment as a common word of faith, see blogs posted
on January 11, 2015 and January 25, 2015.

3 comments:

I'm sympathetic to your account of what goes wrong when an institution wants to emphasize adhering to its dogma as the primary goal for believers. But isn't it possible that a believer could be equally committed to understanding Christ as mystical Logos and as the one and only son of God? I don't see why those positions contradict each other, but it seems that you are framing this as an either/or option. Is that more just about how it plays out, in practice, in day to day living for the believer--he or she is necessarily going to come down as a Logos-person or as an "exclusivist" and there's no way really to act as both at the same time?

Thanks for your comment and question, Ashley.A believer can accept Jesus as the Logos and also believe that Jesus was the one and only Son of God, but church doctrine connects the latter belief with the condemnation of unbelievers to hell, something that Jesus never taught. Ironically, scriptural authority for exclusivist Christian doctrine is based on misinterpretations of John 3:16 and 14:6 from the gospel of the Logos. I have commented on those passages in Faith and eternal life (John 3:16) at p. 394 and in The way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) at p. 416 in the J&M Book in the Resources of the website.If it were not for the condemnation of unbelievers in church doctrine, the exclusivist belief in Jesus as God's one and only Son would not be a problem.